I reach the clinic gate at 5:43 PM.

The sun has dropped low enough that the heat is finally starting to negotiate. The pavement is still hot, but the air above it is breathable again. People are coming out of their buildings—the late-shift crowd, water-cart pushers, kids who weren’t allowed outside all day.

District 4 is exhaling. The Earth learned to live by the night.

The clinic itself doesn’t exhale.

The compound is the most fortified building on this side of the city. High concrete walls topped with electrified fencing. Auto-turrets mounted on the corners, their barrels tracking quietly as I cross the perimeter line. No human guards. Nobody patrolling. The defense isn’t here to keep order—it’s here to protect the Divers inside, who are bedridden and helpless during their submersion.

A Diver under the gel can’t run. So the building runs for them.

I walk to the first gate. Press the back of my right hand against the chip reader.

A soft click. A green light.

A flat mechanical voice issues from a speaker above the door.

"Please proceed to reception for sector registration. Thank you."

I ignore it. I know exactly where to go.

The lobby is colder than the street. Sterile. The floor is the same medical white as every government building in the district, but cleaner, because nobody who can’t afford a clinic ever walks in here. Three reception windows. Two are closed.

I take the open one.

The receptionist is in her thirties. Hair pulled back. Tired but not sleepy-tired. Several thousand identical registration scripts have flattened her down to a procedural voice.

"First-time registration?"

"Yes."

"ID."

I hand it over. She scans. Reads.

"You did your first Dive already, Mr. Sands."

"Emergency tank. I came in with about ten minutes left."

She nods. Types. The screen reflects in her glasses.

"You’ll need to register your chip with this clinic. After today, you’ll have three subsidized Dives per cycle. Government coverage, normal admission. From the fourth Dive onward, you pay per session."

"Fair."

"Sign here. Here. And here."

I sign. The pen is a cheap stylus that drags. I write neatly. Below the name, I press the back of my hand against a circular pad next to the screen. A faint warmth as the chip and the building agree on each other.

"Welcome to the system." She slides a folded paper across the counter. "Floor plan. The recovery wing is to your left. Tank wing to your right."

"Could I take a look around? I’d like to know the layout."

She gives me the briefest amused look. Newcomers always want to see the place before they have to use it.

"Of course. Don’t disturb anyone in recovery."

I pretend to be a layman. It costs me nothing.

The recovery wing is a long, low-lit hall lined with reclining seats. Soft blue lighting. Cool air. Quiet enough that I can hear my own footsteps on the matte floor.

Most of the seats are occupied.

Divers fresh out of the tank. Some sit upright, drinking from pouches with a vacant patience. Others are slumped, staring at nothing. The gel is gone from their skin but the look in their eyes hasn’t recalibrated yet—they’re still half on the other side.

I’m not here to help anyone. I’m here to read.

[Memory of Lightwaves] doesn’t need conversation. It needs proximity. A touch on a shoulder, a brush of an item, a few seconds of contact and the past from the timeline I came from blooms behind my eyes like a slide projected on the inside of my skull.

Three people are within reach.

The first is a woman in the third row. Middle-aged, drawn face, her hands wrapped around a hydration pouch like it’s the only warm thing in the building. I’ve never seen her before.

I stop next to her seat.

"Rough run?"

She glances up. A small polite half-shrug. She doesn’t have the energy left in her body to perform being okay.

"Always."

I rest a hand on her shoulder for two seconds. Long enough to look like reassurance.

"Hang in there."

The flash arrives clean. In my last life, she was a contractor whose Diver crew was hired by the Deepwarden for a recovery run and never paid. The contract was burned. Her crew dispersed. She lost her son the year after. A meeting in a Deepwarden field office. Veridian.

"Thanks," she murmurs.

I move on.

The second is a man, mid-thirties, alone in a corner seat. Heavy build. Dive gel is still on under a thin recovery blanket. Empty seat to his right. He notices me approaching and his face does a small, hostile thing.

"What."

"Just checking in. You look thirsty."

"I’m fine."

He waves me off with a hand that’s already healing wrong.

I lean past him to set my hand on the back of his seat. My knuckles brush his shoulder in the blanket for a beat. I straighten and move on before he can snap.

The flash this time isn’t clean. It’s loud. A DvsD ambush in shallow water. His partner caught between two DvD enchanters. The discovery on the way back—a hidden Deepwarden outpost in Veridian, mapped while bleeding through a wetsuit.

Veridian again.

The third is the worst.

A man in his forties. Lying half-flat on his recovery seat. Bandages all the way up his right arm and across his chest. He’s awake. His eyes track me as I approach. The look isn’t friendly.

"Looking for something, kid?"

"Just walking."

"Then walk."

I keep going past him on the side of his good arm and let my fingers graze the metal frame of his watch. It’s enough.

"Close enough, man. Get the fuck out!"

I don’t answer. I just move.

The flash punches through me. He’s a Deepwarden recruiter. In my last life, he ran a scam—luring new Divers into "training runs" that were actually setups. Robbing them in the dive. Selling lies. He survived a ambush by the very Divers he’d swindled. They left him for dead. He came back missing pieces.

The map in the flash sits over a familiar town.

Veridian again.

I step out of the recovery wing and check the timer.

[18:17:51]

The Thirst is climbing into the back of my mouth like a coal. My last hours on Earth this cycle.

I walk back through the lobby. Nod to the receptionist. Step out through the gate.

The auto-turrets pivot once and lock back to neutral.

Veridian.

Three Divers, three different angles, one common point on the map. The Deepwarden has a base or a hub or both inside that town. That’s where I can search for clues.

Let’s go back home. Mom is keeping dinner in the oven.

Tomorrow I dive.